


The Pitch and the Roll

by eleanor_lavish



Category: The Hunt for Red October (1990)
Genre: Canonical Character Death, Comrades in Arms, Pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-18
Updated: 2020-12-18
Packaged: 2021-03-10 19:29:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,776
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28142415
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eleanor_lavish/pseuds/eleanor_lavish
Summary: Some men live for great things. Other men live for those men. Vasily Borodin lives, happily, for Marko Ramius.
Comments: 15
Kudos: 37
Collections: Yuletide 2020





	The Pitch and the Roll

**Author's Note:**

  * For [docholliday18](https://archiveofourown.org/users/docholliday18/gifts).



> Warning: This is soft, but also sad! I am sorry it is sad, but they are stoic Russians and insisted that this was their story.

Vasily was 17 when he signed up for the Navy. He grew up on the sea; his father built machine parts for the carriers that anchored offshore, his big hands scarred from the ironworks, his big mustache dusted with metal shavings that he carefully combed out before Vasily’s mother would kiss him hello.

Vasily wasn’t a big man. He was compact and quiet, thoughtful and precise. His father thought him weak, Vasily knew. His hands were soft; his voice even softer. He would never follow his bothers’ footsteps to the ironworks. But he read about the great Alexanders - Greek and Russian - and how his countrymen drove back Napoleon with nothing but grit and determination. He understood that the backbone of an empire was not to be found in the giant monuments built to power, but in the work of each man, no matter their talents, to support his comrades. Vasily would look from his books to the carriers on the horizon; he knew he didn’t have to achieve the greatness of Alexander. He had only to give his talents at their fullest, to live his life to support such greatness in others.

*

After a decade spent in the cramped quarters of various submarines, Vasily was plucked from below decks and placed in the officers’ training program. There were dozens of men in his training class who came from wealthy families, who wore their velvet coats to dine on beef and honey cakes at the taverns in town. Vasily stayed in uniform nearly all the time, hoping his comrades would see him as serious and studious and not too poor to own more than one set of non-issued clothing. 

Of course, he _was_ serious and studious and was quietly thrilled when his tests put him at the top of his class. It was here that he met the great man himself, Marko Ramius, the most iconic instructor of the Red Fleet. When Ramius walked into his classroom, his dark eyes lit from within by some unholy fire, Vasily quaked. Ramius was a big man, his hands scarred, his beard tidy and severe. But when he spoke it was with none of the boom of the big men Vasily had known. When Marko Ramius spoke, it was with thoughtful, quiet precision. 

Vasily found a kindred spirit in Marko Ramius. They argued as much as they agreed but their arguments often looked to outsiders like a chess match, one making a move, the other pondering in long silence before replying in kind. Ramius was not one to give praise lightly, or much at all, but Vasily knew his teacher respected him. “Borodin, explain to Gorkev why he is completely wrong,” he would command, and Vasily would flush from embarrassment and from something else, something warm in his chest that stirred whenever Ramius acknowledged him. 

Vasily would easily take his classmates apart; he knew it was not earning him many friends. But he happily gave up friends for the intensity of Marko Ramius focused on Vasily alone, giving one crisp nod of approval before moving on to the next student.

*

They did not serve together until Vasily’s third tour as an officer. 

It was a short tour - three weeks skirting the edges of Greenland with Vasily checking the accuracy of some new maps and Ramius pushing them to go faster, deeper. Vasily’s brain was scrambled by all the math at the end of each day. It was glorious.

“How is it that it took this long?” Ramius asked him one night in the officer’s mess, a glass of tea in one hand. Ramius was not a heavy drinker; neither was Vasily. The other officers thought that made for dull conversation but Vasily was happy to wait them out. As they stumbled back to their bunks, Vasily leaned back and let himself be enveloped by the quiet intensity of Marko Ramius.

“How what took so long, Captain?”

“This. You and I on a boat together.”

“Ah,” Vasily took a sip of his tea, “Who knows the will of Moscow on these things?”

Ramius grunted. “Should have been sooner,” he said with a frown. “I will see to it that the error is corrected.” Vasily’s cheeks got hot; he hid his face behind his teacup.

Vasily never went to sea without Ramius again.

*

Ramius was not a man who took orders lightly. He took them - of course he did, how else had he become the man charged with training half of the Red Fleet, the man given his choice of vessels to command?

But over the years Vasily noticed the way Ramius’ expression would harden when faced with orders he did not agree with. Vasily was not sure anyone else would notice; Ramius’ expressions were famously dour to most of the Admiralty. But Vasily would see his jaw clench, his nostrils flare, and he knew that their mission would be adjusted, ever so slightly, to Marko Ramius’ terms.

“Tomorrow, I would not be surprised if we were to run into some bad readings,” Ramius would say in a meeting with his command staff. “The instruments are acting up, are they not, Borodin?”

“Y-yes, Captain,” Vasily would reply, for he would never contradict Ramius in front of the men.

“They would have us poke the American bear,” Ramius told him one evening after the rest had gone to bed. “Moscow does not understand that the strength of our Fleet lies in its tactical prowess, not its ability to show the larger set of teeth. It will get good men killed.”

Vasily was startled by the baldness of Ramius’ criticism of Moscow but he tried not to let it show. 

“Perhaps they grow weary of waiting for the fight to come to us,” Vasily noted.

“Hmm,” Ramius replied, looking up at Vasily from under heavy brows. “And how are they so sure this is a war we will win? Are you sure of it, Borodin?”

Vasily let the weight of Ramius’ gaze settle over him. He thought for a moment about the feeling in the pit of his stomach every time they’d had an encounter with an American submarine. It was not a fiery passion of righteousness but a sickly feeling of doom. The Americans often had bigger teeth; Vasily knew that as well as Ramius. 

“No, sir,” he replied. “No I am not.” 

He expected the slight shiver of fear that ran down his spine as he admitted this, the one thing no soldier of the Red Fleet was ever to admit out loud. But over the top of that fear was the glow of approval he felt when Ramius caught his eye and said, “Just so, Borodin. Just so.”

*

It wasn’t planned; apparently, they were both invited to a New Year’s party hosted by Admiral Orlov. Vasily was both thrilled and flustered to see Ramius enter. He nearly didn’t register the woman on Ramius’ right until she touched his sleeve, leaning in to speak to him quietly. Vasily watched in wonder as Ramius smiled, his eyes crinkling at the corners. She was tall and square-shouldered with thick waves of dark hair cascading over her shoulders. Her red dress swept nearly to the floor and was cinched with a wide, gold belt. Vasily had seen a photo of her before, just a glimpse in black-and-white in an oval frame in the Captain’s quarters. In real life she was stunning - _Natalia_.

Vasily had merely been sipping at his glass of spiced wine but now he gulped it down, the hot liquid making his throat burn. He held his glass and looked around helplessly for a place to put it, for another face he knew, for a hidden door or a portal or some other escape route before…

“Ah, Borodin,” Ramius was just over his shoulder, and Vasily exhaled slowly before turning around. “Might I introduce you to my wife?” 

Vasily felt the telltale heat in his cheeks and forced a brittle smile. “Mrs. Ramius, it is a great honor -,” he started but he’s stunned into silence by her low, throaty laugh.

“Ah, the famous Vasily Borodin.” She smiled at him and Vasily felt the shell of _something_ (he would not call it jealousy, he dared not) crack and crumble under her warm gaze. “Marko believes you are the least imbecilic man in the Fleet.”

“High praise coming from the Captain,” Vasily replied and was rewarded by another laugh. Ramius grumbled and Natalia pulled him closer until the three of them were a tight circle. 

“Will you be a dear and watch him,” Natalia asked Vasily, her head tipped toward her husband. “I promised my uncle he would not insult anyone tonight, and I have to make the rounds.”

“I don’t need a babysitter,” Ramius grumbled, though he didn’t step away from where Natalia had placed him at Vasily’s side.

“No, of course,” she said, smiling wryly. “But now you can insult everyone you want, just to Commander Borodin and not to their faces!” She sailed off with a wink over her shoulder; Vasily could not have said if it was for the Captain or himself.

“She’s… quite a woman,” Vasily managed finally and Ramius huffed out a laugh beside him. 

“Yes, well,” he said. A moment later he leaned in and nodded his head toward a too-tall man in a green brocade coat. “That is Admiral Petrov’s nephew. I failed him out of my combat tactics course. I honestly don’t know how he passed the third grade.”

Vasily snorted in surprise. “The apple didn’t fall far from that tree, then,” Vasily murmured and Ramius’s mouth turned up at the edge into almost a smile. And so they passed nearly an hour of their holiday party, quietly excoriating various members of the Admiralty. When Natalia found them, they were comparing notes about how many times Sergey Belskin had bumped his boat on his first pass through the Puerto Rico trench. 

“Excellent job,” Natalia said, sweeping in and hooking her arm through Vasily’s. “Even I can barely keep him contained for an hour.”

“Are you done?” Ramius asked, and Natalia sighed.

“Yes, yes, let’s get our coats. Commander Borodin, it was lovely to meet you at last. Marko - you must invite him to spend leave at our summer house next year!”

“Oh, no,” Vasily said just as Ramius said “No, that would not be -”

“That’s right, Captain,” Vasily stuttered, his face flushed again. “It would not be proper -”

“If they thought I was too friendly with Borodin, they would stop allowing me to choose him for my crew,” Ramius said plainly to his wife. “And I cannot allow that. I need him.”

“Ah, of course,” Natalia nodded in understanding.

Neither of them seemed to notice Vasily barely breathing beside them.

*

Vasily was not a monk, despite the pointed whispers of his fellow officers. He passed off his single life as one of contemplation and solitude - things he desperately needed after month-long voyages packed in among his men. He loved the constant metal din of a submarine, but when he was on dry land he sought out quiet. It was calming, being alone. Being able to catalog his memories, pick through them, pack the precious ones away in his heart before he was called back to his duty.

Maybe how he lived outwardly was rather monk-like. But Vasily would bet that most monks did not spend their contemplation thinking about… the things Vasily thought about. Intense eyes and work-worn hands. The creeping slivers of white along a dark temple. 

Before Ramius, Vasily had been able to keep his contemplations more… general. Vague. A sliver of bare skin. A pair of plump lips. The sounds of men in the gymnasium, grunting. The smell of sweat.

After Ramius, Vasily’s heart became a series of boxes labelled _My Captain_.

They were enough. The short nod of his head when Vasily made a comment in the mess; the nudge of an elbow as Ramius leaned over maps beside him; the way Vasily’s name kept appearing on Ramius’s crew manifest, over and over, creeping steadily upward until he was Marko Ramius’s default second in command. Those things were enough.

*

When Natalia died, Ramius changed. 

Vasily was used to the silences between them being long but never like this, never with the weight of Ramius’s grief all around them. Vasily felt it choking them both. 

“How many days of leave do you have, Captain?” Vasily asked, hoping it was long enough for Ramius to be alone with his grief, to take a boat out fishing, to scream and break things. To get all of this dangerous anger out of his system.

“I don’t need leave,” Ramius growled, and Vasily tamped down a sigh. 

A month passed, then two. Ramius walked the deck like a caged animal. Vasily waited for the moment he would break.

But Ramius was not a man easily broken. Instead, he kept Vasily late in the officer’s mess one night and laid out a plan. The Fleet had a new boat, Ramius told him. A boat that would mean the beginning of the end for the Americans. They would steal this boat, Vasily and Ramius and a few other men who Ramius sensed were wary of the true fallout of nuclear armageddon. They would steal this boat and bring it to America, and even the scales again. “It is a good plan, yes?” Ramius asked him at the end of it. 

It was a terrible plan. If anyone caught wind, they would both be executed. If they managed to get in the water, they still had to contend with the political officers, with the spies they knew the Kremlin placed all around them. If they ignored their orders, it was possible they would be hunted by the entire Fleet. It was a terrifying, terrible plan. But in that moment it became singularly clear that Vasily Borodin had long since shifted from serving Mother Russia to serving Marko Ramius. Forever and ever, till death do they part, even - maybe especially - if their graves were together at the bottom of the ocean.

“Yes,” Vasily said. “Yes, it’s a good plan.” 

*

_Postscript, somewhere near Pensacola, November 1989_

“Hey, Ramsey, you might want to turn on your TV.”

Mark Ramsey, nee Marko Ramius, frowns down the phone line. Jack Ryan only calls him once a year, and never to talk about television. He wanders into his cramped living room and flips on the dial.

It’s mayhem. Thousands and thousands of people, walking arm-in-arm past men in deep brown uniforms, weeping, laughing, dancing on a… oh. Dancing on the wall. 

“The wall is coming down.” Ryan says in his ear. “The dominoes are all falling. It’s only a matter of time.”

“Hmm,” Marko grunts before hanging up on Ryan. 

He sits on his sofa with a glass of tea - iced, in deference to the damnable Florida heat even this late in the year - and he watches. East and West Berlin, coming together. He imagines his old comrades watching this on the other side of the world, some wringing their hands, some enraged. Most, he thinks, resigned. Resigned to the end of a war that never quite came to be, a shadow war, a war that cared more for ideology than men.

Marko turns the TV off and wanders into his bedroom. He strips out of his clothes, still crunchy with salt water from his fishing trip that morning. He rinses off in the shower, brushes his teeth, dresses for bed. All the while, on the other side of the world, everything Marko has ever known is changing, shifting, the ground unsteady beneath his feet.

But Marko was raised on fishing boats and submarines. Solid ground has never held much weight for him. He likes the pitch and roll, the swoop of his stomach as a boat rises fast to the surface. For Marko, the ground has only shifted twice that he would notice. 

He glances at his bedside table. Natalia’s bible is there, pristine and holy. Marko touches his fingers to the spine. On top of the bible is a well-worn biography of Alexander the Great of Macedonia. Marko’s read it more than once, but tonight he picks it up again, leaning back against his headboard and thumbing it open. _’He was the friend I valued as my own life,’ Alexander said of Hephastion after his death._ The passage is underlined by a thin black line made by a steady hand. 

Marko Ramius puts his hand to his chest, to the spot where a bullet should have killed him. 

“He was the friend I valued as my own life,” Marko murmurs, and turns the page.


End file.
